Graham Alexander's reaction as Bantams lose to Forest Green

The Bantams suffered a first loss in seven games as they slumped 2-0 at home to lowly Forest Green last night.

Three days on from a convincing win at Accrington, Alexander’s men were booed off by a frustrated Valley Parade faithful as the gap to the play-offs stretched to seven points again.

“That’s the frustration,” said Alexander. “We just think we’re getting close and giving ourselves an opportunity.

“We can almost smell it and then it just gets taken away from us.

“I still believe there’s an opportunity there. It’s going to be extremely difficult.

READ MORE: Match report from a dismal night at Valley Parade 

“But it was going to be right to the wire, no matter what we did. Even if we win our next four or five games, we’ll still have to win right towards the end of the season.”

City never recovered from conceding inside the first minute after giving away a corner from Forest Green’s first attack.

Alexander added: “It was the perfect thing for Forest Green to get that goal and then get us and the crowd frustrated and drag everything down to a slow tempo.

“We allowed them to be able to do that by the goal we conceded. After that it was basically a defending session for them for 89 minutes.

“The quality that the team can produce has been showcased in the last two games.

“Brilliant start on Saturday, completely dominant and win the game 3-0. Poor start this time, go 1-0 down early on and lose the game.

“It’s such a rollercoaster and we have to make sure we’re at the top and stay there.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had the odd occasion like that when we didn’t reach the heights.

“I didn’t see that coming. I thought we’d finally learned about how we have to be as a team to be competitive but the first 30 seconds have hit us hard.

Graham Alexander was unhappy with Forest Green's opener (Image: Thomas Gadd)

“It’s a poor goal from our perspective. It’s poor how they win a corner straight from the kick-off.

“We’re going backwards instead of coming on to it, which we’ve been really good at.

“We gave a team fighting for their lives a massive present in the first minute.”

City did improve after the break with Jamie Walker’s introduction and the Scot was involved in a scramble that almost produced a late equaliser before Forest Green’s second in added time.

Boss Alexander said: “The second half we were good in spells but then we played into their hands by putting high balls into possibly the biggest centre half in the Football League (Ryan Inniss).

“I thought we should have showed a bit more build-up in the final third to get behind people. We had to take the ball closer to people and we didn’t do that enough to create clear-cut opportunities.

“It’s very difficult when there’s a six or seven-man defence in front of you.”